Welcome to Darren Daly on demand, your most trusted resource to help you become better every day.

Here's your success mentor, Darren Hardy.

Between songs, you could almost hear the audience yawning and leaving.

It was one of the show business disasters that they talked about for years,

the kind that marks a certain performer as poison. It was the summer of 1969. They called her

plain Joan, a quote, boring dud. To make matters worse, she was a proven failure in town. So the

hotel that hired her could not claim being

surprised. Only a half dozen years previous, Liberace had taken her as his opening act at the

Riviera. The pianist manager was horrified. She is so, so plain, he kept saying, so boring.

The audience won't want to hear anything after she's through.

Liberace's experienced associate was quite right,

but maybe it was partly sympathy that caused the legendary showman

to persist in defending, quote, plain Joan.

Whatever the case, she opened for Liberace,

and in the language of the trade, she bombed. No sets, no props. Her clothing was drab and ordinary.

Her presentation was little more than a monotonous succession of songs. Applaus was sparse, barely civil.

By the time the flamboyant piano player arrived on stage, the audience was almost angry.

And so was the hotel management.

Get rid of her, they told Liberace.

Your own career could go down with her.

Liberace offered a compromise.

He would open his own show, he said, go out, do a peppy number,

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